


ten moments with a boneseer

by lycanthus (timedilations)



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 09:34:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10554074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timedilations/pseuds/lycanthus
Summary: The boneseer reflects on her life.Fantasy AU featuring Mallory, one of my OCs, andPa'sNate.





	

 

 

 

  _o n e_

The boneseer takes a deep breath and counts to ten.

A familiar smell of rotted wood and vegetation. Honeysuckle, poison ivy, dogwood.  Her hands glide over the bark of her home. Moss covered. Soft to the touch. Vines that creep along her tree's roots, clinging onto its surface. Great billowing branches reach above her, all the way to the top of her forest's canopy.

That was right. Her forest.  
The forest that protected her, and the one that she now protects in turn.  
A sacred place, far from the cities and towns of humans.

Every leaf, blade of grass, and insect hums quietly with the gentle song of life. Whether it is the bees, the cicadas, the sound of rain, or the wind in her trees, the boneseer listens.

After all, it's her favorite song.

 

          _t w o_

Every morning, she carefully arranges the skeletons hanging from the branches of her tree. Sometimes she adds a fresh corpse— usually a victim of the swamps or the serpents that roam her woods. Other times, she takes one down, to be used in her apothecary work. The kind of apothecary work not sanctioned by the clergy. Poisons. Aphrodisiacs. Things that grant great power. Things to conquer kingdoms. Things that come at a high price.

She finds the humans who covet them to be illogical and misguided.  
Perhaps it's merely her own perspective. Perhaps her own innate ability makes her take it all for granted, but still. What makes humans desire it so?

The boneseer is content in her solitude. Powerful though she is, she desires not to rule, or to assert herself over others. Those sorts of things are for mortals.

All she wants is to be alone.

 

          _t h r e e_

People come to her, seeking their fortune. For the boneseer, reading the threads of fate that are woven between each and every life is something close to child's play.

She's seen her own future many times, never changing.

First, the clergy gains power. A ban on all unsanctioned magic will be placed. Many mystics, fortune tellers, and mages will be burned at the stake. Then, it will be her turn too. They will come for her at the crack of dawn, waking her from her sleep, then placing her in front of a jury in some pathetic farce of a trial. Lies and truths will be intertwined in testimony. Then, they tie her up, in front of the castle. Set bales of hay ablaze at her feet.

Then... it will be over.

The boneseer feels nothing.  
No fear, no hatred, no regret.

Her fate lies far in the future, where the clergy is one far different than the one now. Where many kingdoms have conquered, thrived, and fell into ruin. Where the world she knows— her eternal forest —will slowly wither around her.

Existence without it seems pointless.

 

    _f o u r_

Of the threads of fate she sees, the ones that puzzle her the most are the ones that stay inexplicably intertwined. These, that are dyed with the color of passion— red.  
  
Red strings imbued with something called love.

The boneseer is perplexed. Perhaps once, a long, long time ago, she may have understood that strange emotion. She knows the physical symptoms of it. The fluttering of butterflies in one's stomach, or the frantic pitter-pattering of one's heart in their chest. And yet, these feelings remain foreign to her.

After all, she disliked bonds.

Bonds were illogical things humans sought out for companionship in exchange for the multitude of problems that arose from them. She's seen it many times— in the lovesick stable boy pining for a prince. In the handmaiden serving the husband of her soulmate. In the poor waif, lost in her woods, parentless and alone.

How troublesome, she thinks.  
Only merely needed to accustom themselves to loneliness, then problem solved.

   
  


        _f i v e_

Immortals are not infallible.  
She's made more mistakes in her lifetime than she can count.

 

 

_s i x_

She had a familiar, once. Many, many moons ago, when she was yet young and her forest was fresh, vibrant, and aglow with joviality. Back when she still believed that her actions bore some consequence in the world, and that good deeds would be rewarded in kind.

She found him collapsed outside her tree cottage, a trail of blood tracing his footsteps. A fox, black as the night itself- with a leg broken and contorted. Red eyes that surveyed her carefully. He regarded her with suspicion.

    "And what pathetic creature are you?" he asked.  
    "I could ask you the same," she replied.

The boneseer took him into her home, healed him. The next morning, all of her artifacts, grimoires, potions had all vanished. The fox was nowhere to be seen.  
Yet, this was not the mistake.

Many moons later, she met him again. This time, in the form of a young man. Hair, unkempt, as black as the night itself, and red eyes that greeted her with something she couldn't quite put her finger on.

    "Have we met before?" he asked.  
    "You stole from me," she replied.  
    "No, not then. Far before. Not here, not now."  
    "In another life?"  
    "Perhaps."  
    "How do you know?"  
    "A gut feeling. Maybe fate."  
    "You know nothing of fate. You've yet to live a hundred years."  
    "Yet I've lived a hundred lives and not a single person I've met has drawn me."  
    "What are you trying to say? Spit it out."  
    "My name is Nathaniel," he said. "Please allow me to be your fox."

The bonds that stay inexplicably intertwined were the ones that puzzled her the most. Therein lies her mistake:  
She accepted.

   
  


      _s e v e n_

Foxes are clever beings. Completely untrustworthy. The scoundrels of the forest. Absolutely deplorable, always ready to betray you for a quick gain. Nathaniel was all of these things in spades. But never once since that first meeting did he ever do her wrong.

For many moons, they spent their days idly, in peaceful solitude. The fox would always be gone by day, doing whatever it was that foxes did— the boneseer never questioned it. And by night, he would be back. Usually in a condition worse than what he left in. She never questioned it. Some days, he took the form of a man, bidding her farewell before he disappeared for months at a time, only to return bruised, bloodied, and near death. Yet that fox-like grin on his face never wavered- not even once.

She never questioned it.  
That was her second mistake.

What business of hers was it? The boneseer was never one to meddle in the matters of others, after all. As far as she knew, her life was hers, and the fox's his. They communed every evening, and the nights they spent in eachother's company were bereft of needless conversation. Smalltalk was a waste of time. So were those declarations of loyalty that knights so often claimed to their princesses. For the two of them, one another's presence was enough. To quietly coexist in silence. To breathe the same air, occupy the same space— to bear witness to one another's existence. 

It was enough. The world outside her domain had no place in her home, and as far as the boneseer knew, the fox was a tame a fox as any. Yet, this was not so outside the forest.

 

  _e i g h t_

One day, Nathaniel disappeared.  
He did not come back.

Years passed. The boneseer did nothing. On occasion, when the rare traveler made their way to her tree cottage, she would house them for a night or two. Allow them into her space in exchange for information.

She asked about her familiar. One of them delivered.

Their story told of a demon from Hell, assuming the simple, modest form of a fox. This fox brought misfortune to all it crossed. Sometimes it was a simple betrayal or act of adultery. Other times, whole countries met ruin, besieged by fires or famine in the wake of war. Taking the form of a man, this demon spun elaborate tales woven with deceit to incite chaos.

But perhaps worse than his lies were his truths.  
It was said that the late prince Aegipan had taken his own life after seeing a black fox.

In truth, it was hardly surprising. A fox like the night itself, and red eyes that seemed like fire in the darkness. A tell-tale sign. And the face of a man whose unkempt hair and mischievous grin spoke of a cunning far more vast than the sincerity in his voice could disguise. She should have known. And yet, it was only now that she understood. All the months he spent away. The days he slipped off, motives unknown to her.

The travelers all told her he was burned at the stake. Reduced to nothing but a charred mass, black as sin.

    "Good riddance," they said. "May the Earth be cleansed of such monsters."

The boneseer said nothing.

 

 

    _n i n e_

The silence in her home never felt the same since.

   
  


        _t e n_

It took her many moons to understand the genius behind Nathaniel's actions. An immortal like herself could not be fazed so easily, after all. She saw too many things— lived through too many wars —to be moved by tragedy the way a mortal would. For her, it was a cycle. Peace, unrest, war, triumph. And it played itself through every century— in different times yet for the same reason: Power. 

The boneseer did not seek power. She could not be moved by such trivialities.  
Thus, the fox did something else— changed his tactics to the only thing that could be an immortal's downfall. 

He endeared himself to her.

What a peculiar way to hurt someone, she thinks.  
Even more peculiar was the fact that it worked. 

In time, the clergy would begin to unravel the mystery. Begin to trace Nathaniel's footsteps right back to her forest home, back to her little tree cottage deep within the woods, and they would seize her, burn her tree, burn her entire glade to ashes, then burn her on the stake.

She cares little about it, save for some grim kind of amusement in her own folly.

For now, she lives for the life springing forth around her. Winter comes to pass. The birds return to her branches, and the canopy sings with life. It reminds her of a time, long passed— when she was yet a young seer, still wide-eyed and full of wonder. A time many, many moons ago, when the smell of fox blood was still fresh on the grass.

 

The boneseer exhales.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I felt really inspired one day and this came out?? I butchered Nate to hell and back but that's a story for another day I guess. I'm in love with this version of Mal that I made for an RP a long time ago. I want to do things with her again.


End file.
